Black Crayola marker
Cruel sharp lines
Black against pink
Like a rip in a sunset
Pinching the rolling hills of my stomach
The swells of my hips
Ripping through them like
A dark highway in the sky
2.) Thick bubbling folds of fat
Suffocating my bones
I could be beautiful underneath it all
The squeak of the treadmill
Is the only noise that
Accompanies me at midnight
As my daughter sleeps in
The room next to mine
I hope I won’t wake her
3.) Kneeling on the bathroom tile
In front of the unforgiving porcelain bowl
I stare into its depths
A pool of stomach acid
My knees are cut and bleeding
My bones ache
I’m being hypnotized by the swirls in the bowl
My daughter wails outside
She’s hungry
She needs to be fed
I can’t let her become fat like me
I ignore her
4.) It’s my daughter’s birthday today
How old is she?
I don’t remember
The only numbers I know
Are the ones on food packaging
My hair feels like dry grass
My veins are blue knots of yarn
Visible through my thin rice paper skin
My body is so cold
I didn’t buy her a birthday cake
I hear her crying herself to sleep
Her muffled sobs
Punctuated by the squeaks of the treadmill
5.)Fight it, fight the waves of pain that
Wrack my battle-worn body
Hunger is a weakness
I can feel my heart gasping for air
Yet I still drag myself onto the floor
Do some push ups
Do some sit ups
Burn all of that fat
The moon glares at me through my bedroom window
6.) My daughter drew a picture today
Of our family
The two of us, standing in front of our apartment
Unsmiling with holes for eyes
We don’t hold hands
She, with curly purple crayon hair
A yellow shirt
Red shoes
Me, wearing a triangular dress
Gray sticks for arms and legs
Gray toothpicks for legs
We both wear deep
Black frowns
My head hurts
Please go away
7.) It is 3:17 in the morning
The red glow of my alarm clock
Bathes me in a light that
Won’t melt my bones
I can’t breathe
My ribcage is shrinking
I can hear every beat of my heart
The drumbeat pulses through my paper body
Like an earthquake
My daughter is asleep in the room next door
I didn’t feed her dinner tonight
Can she hear my heart?
8.) The heart monitor beeps
A steady rhythm
I lie underneath stiff white sheets
Like a corpse
I died a long time ago
White walls, white gowns
Is this heaven?
God comes in then
In the form of a blue-eyed doctor
He takes my pulse
Stabs me with needles
Where is she? I ask
He pauses and smiles pityingly
God’s eyes are oh so blue
That’s when I know
And I can’t even weep
I
don’t remember her face
The heart monitor beeps on and on
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Canary word: Present
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125,007 Literary Works • 672,816 Reviews
This poem is heart breaking. *sobs in a corner* The thing that stuck out to me the most that you wrote was the mother not being able to remember how old her own daughter is, and her not being willing to feed her. It was so sad. It seemed like such an atrocious thing the mother was doing to her child, but she didn't fully realize the devastating effects of her actions on herself and her daughter until it was too late. There was just one little part that seemed like it could use some fixing.
"Gray sticks for arms and legs
Gray toothpicks for legs"
I would combine these two lines into one since they are a bit repetitive. You could maybe say something like, "Gray toothpicks for arms and legs"
Other than that tiny little part I really couldn't find a thing to nitpick about your poem. It was excellent. Ten out of ten stars! I can't wait to read more from you. Good job and keep writing!
Thank you for the review! I didn't even notice my repetition, thanks for pointing it out!
This is so sad! Oh the feels, you hit the nail head on with this poem. It perfectly showed the determination and anguish, as well as the feelings of hopelessness. I'm not even going to try to nit pick this poem, I think I'm going to go sob in a corner instead! This poem is just, wow, really, really good. Congratulations on a work well done!
-Biluata
Thank you for the kind words!
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